Profesora Marissa Lopez shares her journey in her Latinidad as well as the erasure of Mexican history in the United States and the impact of indigenous Mexicans have had specifically in California.
Wine: Aldina Vineyards 2019 Chardonnay
BIO:
Marissa López is Professor of English and Chicana/o Studies at UCLA, researching Chicanx literature from the 19th century to the present with an emphasis on 19th century Mexican California. She has written two books: Chicano Nations (NYU 2011) is about nationalism and Chicanx literature from the early-1800s to post-9/11; Racial Immanence (NYU 2019) explores uses of the body and affect in Chicanx cultural production. She recently completed a year-long residency at the Los Angeles Public Library as a Scholars & Society fellow with the ACLS where she worked to collaboratively develop a mobile app, “Picturing Mexican America,” that uses geodata to display images of Mexican California relevant to a user’s location.
Professor López is past Vice President of the Latina/o Studies Association and the past chair of the Modern Language Association’s prize committee for the best book in Chicana/o and Latina/o Literary and Cultural Studies. She is also past chair of both the MLA’s Executive Committee on Chicana/o Literature and its Committee on the Literature of People of Color of the US and Canada, and a past Director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center as well as past chair of UCLA’s Committee on Diversity and Equal Opportunity.